The Brightest Flame in Ballymuir

The Third of Three Books in this Romance Series. Written in 2012 by Dorien Kelly.

Sorry it has been a while since my last post. I am finally getting the ball rolling with interviews and such.

The Brightest Flame in Ballymuir is all about Vi Kilbride. For those of you that have read the previous posts/books, Vi is the sister of Michael Kilbride (the main character of book one). Vi is an artist who enjoys being in her own little world painting and creating perfect pieces of art.

Vi spent most of her summers as a child/teen with her Nan in Duncarraig. Sadly, this book is based around her Nan’s passing. Nan left her house to Vi a while back, but Vi never had the time to clean out the house or the heart to put it up for sale. Finally, the time had come to visit Duncarraig, empty the house and ready it for the market.

Within the first day of being in town, Vi ran into her past lover, Liam Rafferty. Each time Vi used to spend the summers with Nan, she ended up spending a good chunk of her time with Liam. Liam was her first love and left her with a broken heart to go travel to America. At first, their reunion was a bit rocky, but they rekindled the flame right where they left off.

However, since the last time the two have seen each other, Liam has been married and created a child. He still ‘works’ in America and his now ex-wife has been called to duty so he took his daughter to Ireland to escape a bit. Liam thought being back would help him raise his girl, Meghan, with all the family around, but he also had his own secret motive to be back home. Liam is on the hunt for his family’s gold.

The story has been told that the Rafferty gold has been handed down from father to oldest son year after year. One time, a man in the line had to leave for a bit and trusted his lover to guard the family gold. This lover was an ancestor of Vi’s. Therefore, Vi and Liam are the two descendants alive that deserve the gold, if it were to still be passed down. However, the story states that the gold has never been found and is still out there, unclaimed and waiting for its’ owner to uncover it.

Will the flame between Vi and Liam ignite once again as the title states? Will Liam find the treasure he came to Duncarraig for? Continue reading the Spoilers page for more information.

The Third of Three Books in this Romance Series. Written in 2012 by Dorien Kelly.

*Note- This post continues the writing from the Book Summaries page. Please read for previous details.*

So, where to start, where to start… How about the two main character’s love life?

Vi and Liam started out again by hitting it off fairly well. Vi was a bit thrown off to see that he was with a child now and had married before, but tried to work past that. What she couldn’t seem to overcome was Liam’s search for the family gold. She found Liam in her Nan’s yard with a metal detector of sorts scanning it for traces of gold while she was inside cleaning the place up for sale. The story of the family gold has been told for so many years that Vi thought it was foolish for him to be so aggressively hunting, yet alone, on her property.

What Vi did not know at the time was that Liam’s company back in America was going under water quickly. There was a scandal with a co-worker of his stealing money for personal use and a lawsuit was quickly filed verse the entire company. Liam needed this gold more than anything to help his pocketbook as well as his pride.

Vi, dauntless and determined, tried to ignore the aspect of the gold hunt from their relationship but this was hard to overcome. Finally, the two joined forces when they searched a local castle that an American couple recently fixed up and opened to the public. As rumored, there were secret passageways in the walls of the castle that the two found to lead to a room for the gold. Vi, a witch of sorts, could hear the gold speaking to her when she touched the walls there. However, to keep the suspense moving, the gold was all gone and had been relocated or found out by someone before them.

This run-in at the castle also brought back memories for the two lovers. This was the place that they first made love to each other. As Liam brought this up, Vi suddenly became overwhelmed with emotions and was very distant to Liam. What he didn’t know was that Vi had become impregnated that night many years ago. It was somehow being born inside on of her organs so she had to have it removed for the sake of her own health. This surgery left Vi being unable to bear children ever again.

This all was going too fast again for Vi: being around Liam, remembering their ‘almost child’, seeing him with his new child and just rekindling their flame. Vi was finished with Nan’s property and finally was ready to go back to her home in Ballymuir so she left. Without more than a note, she drove back home and went back to her painting.

When her Nan’s furniture arrived at her house a few days later, Vi found herself wanting to paint these to fix them up. Liam left back to America to fix things up with his company and try to get out with as little debt as possible. After a few weeks of him missing, Vi found some jelly stuck to her Nan’s furniture that she threw at Liam’s head in anger before he left. As she was scraping it off, she could hear the same sounds from the furniture that she did in the castle a while back. It was the GOLD!

After scraping off the coat of paint that she had done and another that Nan probably did, she found that pieces of the furniture were made of gold. She didn’t want to tell anyone of her find but did have a little piece checked for authenticity. This was it! There was also a note attached mentioning where Nan had hidden the rest of the gold so Vi dug it all up and finally hit the jackpot. Knowing that it was partially Liam’s, she did not want to do anything rash just yet.

When Liam came to visit, she finally was able to tell him the story of her infertility, he confessed about his corrupted business and this finally allowed her to tell him the happiness of her finding the gold.

Liam and Vi lived happily ever after (didn’t see that one coming, did you?). They sold most of their gold to a museum while keeping some pieces to continue the story of the lost gold.

So, we have finally made it! This is the last of the Ballymuir Series. A sad end but a new adventure awaits us. If anyone has suggestions on what to read next, please comment below. Otherwise, I think I plan to read Divergent since the movie will be coming out soon and I love comparing books to movies.